U.S. Pat. No. 3,767,901 discloses a digital animation graphics apparatus and methods. This appears to be the basic patent in the prior art since 1975.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,898,438 discloses a programmable method for digital animation apparatus for assembling animation data.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,912,694 discloses mechanical dolls which are controlled by signals on a recording medium. Over the prior art, this patent has achieved synchronization at reduced cost.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,825,136 describes a mimetic function simulator. This patent addresses the "adequate number of control devices" limitation of prior art. It also addresses the complexity, space, and size of prior methods of controlling facial muscles. Control methods are broad, using tape recorder, keyboard, and modem.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,013,276 describes the use of thermal motors (composed of Nitinol). However, motion is simple and random. This invention described in this patent is not directly programmable, nor does it use a large number of degrees of freedom.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,270,480 describes a toy acting in response to a Midi signal. This invention is about the conversion of an instrument playing signals into drive signals.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,289,273 and 5,142,803 disclose an animated character system with real-time control. This patent has a complex implementation, but it does mention "direct drive vs indirect drive" as a method of controlling joints. One example is the direct drive control at the shoulder (FIG. 10a, 10b), and also for the head (FIG. 8a), and for the wrist. Additionally, it mentions the use of surgical tubing as a way to counteract gravity.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,394,766 describes a robotic human torso that takes advantage of hydraulic rotary actuators, and also linear actuators. The improvement over the prior art is in the size and number of degrees of freedom that can be implemented. This patent describes an industrial implementation. What the present invention accomplishes over this patent is that it
Uses conventional and readily (commercially) available parts, and is PA1 Simpler and PA1 Cheaper. PA1 (a) a first housing attachable to the first portion of the robotic assembly and adapted to receive a first controllable servomotor having a first drive axle rotatable about a first axis; PA1 (b) a second housing attachable to the second portion of the robotic assembly and adapted to receive a second controllable servomotor having a second drive axle rotatable about a second axis; PA1 (c) a hinge connector having means for pivotally supporting the first housing about the first axis, the pivot means including a freely movable pivot joint along the first axis on one side of the first housing and a first control arm for fixed attachment to the first drive axle of the first servomotor on the opposite side of the first housing; PA1 (d) a rotational connector having a second control arm for fixed attachment to the second drive axle of the second servomotor, the rotational connector mechanically coupling the second control arm with the hinge connector along the second axis such that the second axis is perpendicular to the first axis; PA1 (a) a shoulder portion having articulated means for attaching the arm to the torso, the arm being rotatable with respect to the torso about a shoulder axis substantially perpendicular to the central torso axis; PA1 (b) an upper arm portion having doubly articulated means for attaching the upper arm portion to the shoulder portion, the upper arm portion being rotatable with respect to the shoulder portion about a first axis substantially perpendicular to the central arm axis and about a second axis substantially coaxial with the central arm axis; PA1 (c) a forearm portion having doubly articulated means for attaching the forearm portion to the upper arm portion, the forearm portion being rotatable with respect to the upper arm portion about a third axis substantially perpendicular to the central arm axis and about a fourth axis substantially coaxial with the central arm axis; and PA1 (d) a hand portion having articulated means for attaching the hand portion to the forearm portion, the hand portion being rotatable with respect to the forearm portion about a fifth axis substantially perpendicular to the central arm axis. PA1 (a) a hip portion having articulated means for attaching the leg to the torso, the leg being rotatable with respect to the torso about a hip axis substantially perpendicular to the central torso axis; PA1 (b) an upper leg portion having doubly articulated means for attaching the upper leg portion to the hip portion, the upper leg portion being rotatable with respect to the hip portion about a first axis substantially perpendicular to the central leg axis and about a second axis substantially coaxial with the central leg axis; PA1 (c) a lower leg portion having doubly articulated means for attaching the lower leg portion to the upper leg portion, said lower leg portion being rotatable with respect to the upper leg portion about a third axis substantially perpendicular to the central leg axis and about a fourth axis substantially coaxial with the central leg axis; and PA1 (d) a foot portion having articulated means for attaching the foot portion to the lower leg portion, said foot portion being rotatable with respect to the lower leg portion about a fifth axis substantially perpendicular to the central leg axis. PA1 (a) a head portion having doubly articulated means for attaching a head portion to a neck portion, the head portion being rotatable with respect to the neck portion about a second axis substantially perpendicular to the first axis and about a third axis substantially coaxial with the first central longitudinal axis; PA1 (b) a neck portion having a spinal section, to which is attached a spinal section of a torso portion; and PA1 (c) a torso portion having a spinal section, which comprises: PA1 (a) running a graphical animation program of the desired action; PA1 (b) generating output in the program's proprietary format; PA1 (c) transforming said output into an ASCII file format; PA1 (d) inputting the file from step (c) together with a file having mannequin specifications into a program that transforms the choreograph instructions into a compressed binary output file for operation by a run program. PA1 (e) inputting the compressed binary file of choreograph instructions from step (d) into a run program; PA1 (f) the run program output being to an interface, preferably a serial interface; PA1 (g) the interface interfacing with pulse width modulation controller circuitry; PA1 (h) the pulse width modulation controller circuitry controlling the mannequin and causing it to execute the choreograph instructions; and PA1 (i) a power supply to supply power to the servos in the mannequin. PA1 (A) using a spreadsheet program to develop a choreograph; PA1 (B) outputting the choreograph in a spreadsheet file; PA1 (C) transforming the spreadsheet file into an ASCII input file; PA1 (D) inputting the file from step (C) together with a file having mannequin specifications into a program that transforms the choreograph instructions into a compressed binary output file for operation by a run program. PA1 (E) inputting the compressed binary file of choreograph instructions from step (D) into a run program; PA1 (F) the run program output being to an interface, preferably a serial interface; PA1 (G) the interface interfacing with pulse width modulation controller circuitry; PA1 (H) the pulse width modulation controller circuitry controlling the mannequin and causing it to execute the choreograph instructions; and PA1 (I) a power supply to supply power to the servos in the mannequin.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,493,185 discloses a method for animating motor driven puppets and the like and apparatus implementing the method. This patent mentions prior art as unsuited to effectively process the control signals.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,623,428 describes a method for developing computer animation that covers the underlying technology in modern computer animation: forward kinematics and reverse kinematics.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,655,945 describes a video and radio-controlled moving and talking device. This references signals carried on VCR and TV and an expanded use of the invention specifically referred to as "custom skeletal structure" linkages, a plurality of electric motors. The reference describes the use of a computer to integrate sound waves to send responses to a transmitter.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,696,892 describes a method and apparatus for providing animation in a three dimensional computer generated virtual world using a succession of textures derived from temporarily related source images. This reflects the state of the art in how some of the computer animation today gets accomplished. Claims are for incorporating real world objects into 3D computer graphics.